Started cleaning out and organizing. I have some Iron Barrel spares and gaskets that need a new home. Once I have it organized I'm not sure if I should list stuff here in deference to our host. Some is Hitchcock's or India stuff. If I list on eBay, I'll post that it's all on eBay.I do know that since having an EFI bike, I may not get another Iron Barrel and the parts mostly won't go with the EFI RE's.Dennis

There used to be a good karma thread here for giving away parts to anyone who needed them. I think it got shut down when people started selling parts, which is a no-no rule set by our host. If you want to give them away to good homes though, I'd bet that could be done.

Note 2: When rocking the HIGH/LOW Beam switch from HIGH to LOW, the LOW Beam will illuminate momentarily just before the HIGH Beam extinguishes. With the switch in the LOW Beam position there is no voltage to the LOW Beam circuit.

Looks like bad contacts in the LH switch module LOW side.Under Warranty, so I'll be in touch with my Dealer.At least I still have my HIGH beam.

Logged

Rather than have a homeless person for the holidays, I decided to stick with ham.

I ported and polished my intake manifold! I was working some extra hours today and decided to go through my crate of RE/Indian parts this afternoon to see what I could play with. I ended up grabbing the intake manifold and took it home and went at it with the Dremmel to open up the runners a bit, remove the imperfections that were in it and took off about a .5mm on the ports that bolt to the heads. Then I started wet sanding away with a whole bunch of 320 grit paper until I had the entire surface flat and true and had removed every last imperfection that was possible. Then I wet sanded with 500 grit, then 800 grit and finished off with 1000 grit paper. I have to say that the intake is smooth as glass now. I also have to say that my index finger hastes me, and my whole hand and arm in general is sore as hell. It took me a total of 4 1/2 hours to accomplish what I did and I'd like to think it was worth it. It may or may not even be worthy of a 1-3 hp gain, but it should definitely help increase the throttle response and get a bit more torque out of the motor.

The Aftermath

Believe it or not that was a fresh bucket of water before I started on this.

The main thing is to get it to match up to the port for a seamless transition to the head. This is helpful to eliminate any flow losses from a step at the junction.

Unfortunately, for a carburetor application, the smooth mirror-polish is not helpful, and the normal school of thought is to leave the interior at about a 100 grit finish.This helps to re-atomize fuel that drops out of suspension.You won't see any modern porting job with a polish like that in it. Even though it looks great, the function is better with a rough interior finish.Way back in the day, they used to do polishing like that, but it has been changed for quite a while now. Ever since wet -flow testing was discovered, the polishing went out the window.

If you plan to do the heads, please discuss it with me first, and don't touch the port floors please! Porting should not lower the port angle, nor sharpen the radius on the short turn.

Don't worry Ace, I haven't, nor plan on touching the heads. But I must for a moment now discuss my momentary hatred for Wisconsin. WTF, so apparently most people in Wisconsin are 2 or 3 decades late with performance technology. After wrenching on this bike for a year, I have learned that everything I thought I knew about performance set ups is now null and void. Most of my Hot Rod knowledge is apparently directly out of the 1960's and completely irrelevant and useless in today's world, and has basically been limited to the simple knowledge of knowing how an internal combustion engine works. I guess that what I get for relying on all my educational needs coming from Redneck relatives and Chevy High Performance magazine. Even with a 1958 bike, what I know (or even thought I knew) isn't shit compared to what I should know. And most of what I thought I knew, is just plain wrong information. And here I thought I was a little bit of a bad ass because I was fixing tractors and farm trucks when I was 14. Wake Up Scottie!!! You're A Dumbass.

This is saddening to discover. It is also saddening to find out that all that hard ass work I did last night was in vain and more than likely did more damage than good. FML. If it makes a difference, I didn't actually polish anything, just sanded to 1000 grit paper, which apparently is 900 grits too fine. This isn't how I wanted to start my Sunday.